If you hope to climb the Pyramids and hit the tables in Monte Carlo when you retire from the business you’ve spent years building, read on. A properly drafted buy-sell agreement can give you the comfort that you can sell your interest in your company to your partners for a fair price.

The recent political conflict between the Obama Administration and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has thrown a new spotlight on an old communication problem. Local chambers of commerce, although they predate the U.S. Chamber by nearly a century and a half, often are assumed to be part of the U.S. Chamber, or otherwise under its direction. They aren’t. They are independent.

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that each year millions of Americans are victimized by identity thieves ultimately costing the credit industry billions of dollars.  Identity theft occurs when a criminal steals your name, Social Security number, or other significant identifiers and utilizes the information without your knowledge or permission. The thief can use your information to obtain credit, employment, or other services. We have even seen many cases where the thief gets arrested for a crime and gives the true person's name and information. This type of activity results in the victim having a criminal record and sometimes warrants issued for their arrest as a result of the initial charges.

I’ve just come up with a new barometer for small businesses to gauge their effectiveness. It really wasn’t so much a brainstorm or a flash of quantum insight. I simply tripped over the root of a novel idea.

With the approach of the midterm elections, it is doubly important for the Hampton Roads business community to remain actively engaged with our elected leadership.

Not very long ago, companies were lamenting the availability of qualified candidates; but the winds of fortune have turned south. It has become a "hirer's market," if you will. Does this make the executive search process an easier course to plot and maintain? Will an organization be successful in finding the right person for the right job in a timely manner simply because the waters are teeming with possibilities? Probably not.

The remainder of the 111th Congress will be largely defined by one issue: taxes. With the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, Americans are facing the largest tax hike in history. If Congress acts to prevent these tax increases, the economy will receive a much-needed injection of certainty. But if Congress lets tax relief lapse, 2011 will be another difficult year for American families and businesses.

There have been a lot of changes with recent advances in technology in the way we do business.  With new methods of reaching out to your target audience like websites, online advertising, and social media it’s easy to get caught up in the hottest new trends.  

First of all, we need to understand how business writing is different from the writing we all did in school. Clearly, the audience is different. We are preparing documents for a whole range of people, not just our teacher. There's a lot more riding on our success. Money is changing hands, and our image is on the line.  In addition, we have a more defined purpose: we may be writing simply to inform, to document information for our own protection, to instruct, or to persuade others. There's more than a grade at stake.

Our Hampton Roads communities cannot fully recover from a disaster such as a hurricane without you being back in business.  A significant percentage of businesses do not reopen after a major disaster like a hurricane, flood, or tornado.  These shuttered businesses were unprepared for a disaster because they had no plan or backup systems.  Don’t let this happen to your business.  You should start by first, organizing your own disaster planning team.  Your team should develop strategies in these three critical areas: human resources; physical resources; and business continuity.